Pygmalion

by Bernard Shaw

April 2005

"You squashed cabbage leaf... you incarnate insult to the English language: I could pass you off as the Queen of Sheba!"

Professor Henry Higgins takes a bet offered by a fellow linguist, Colonel Pickering, to pass off Eliza Doolittle as a Duchess within six months. There’s just a small problem - Eliza is a common Covent Garden flower seller who can barely string a coherent sentence together. Teaching Eliza to speak properly is one thing, teaching her how to be a lady is quite another.

Better known through its adaptation as the musical ‘My Fair Lady’, this classic play is a comedy of manners, written by an Irishman who was obsessed with perfecting the usage and pronunciation of the English language.